Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making - as well as creatively cannibalizing--electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.

This revised and expanded second edition is extensively illustrated and includes a DVD featuring 87 video clips and 20 audio tracks by over 100 hackers, benders, musicians, artists, and inventors from around the world, as well as 13 video tutorials demonstrating projects in the book. Further enhancements include additional projects, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations.

About the Author

Nicolas Collins, an active composer and performer of electronic music, and has worked with John Cage, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor, and many other masters of modern music. Dr. Collins is Professor of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has led hacking workshops around the world. He has been Visiting Artistic Director of STEIM (Amsterdam) and a DAAD composer-in-residence in Berlin. Since 1997 he has been editor-in-chief of Leonardo Music Journal.

4. In/Out: Speaker as Microphone, Microphone as Speaker-the Symmetry of it All
5. The Celebrated Jumping Speaker of Bowers County: Twitching Loudspeakers with Batteries
6. How to Solder: An Essential Skill
7. How to Make a Contact Mike: Using Piezo Disks to Pick Up Tiny Sounds

Art & Music 2: John Cage-The Father of InventionArt & Music 3: Piezo Music

8. Turn You Tiny Wall Into a Speaker: Resonating Objects with Piezo Disks, Transformers, Motors, and More

Art & Music 4: David Tudor and "Rainforest"Art & Music 5: Drivers

9. Tape Heads: Playing Your Credit Cards

Art & Music 6: Tape

10. A Simple Air Mike: Cheap Condenser Mike Elements Make Great Microphones

Part III: Touching

11 Laying of Hands: Transforming a Portable Radio into a Synthesizer by Making Your Skin Part of the Circuit

Art & Music 7: The Cracklebox

12. Tickle the Clock: Finding the Clock Circuit in Toys
13. Hack the Clock: Changing the Clock Speed for Cool New Noises
14. Ohm's Law for Dummies: How to Understand Resistors

Art & Music 8: Composing Inside Electronics

15. Beyond the Pot: Photocells, Pressure Pads, and Other Ways to Control and Play Your Toy

Art & Music 9: Circuit Bending

16. Switches: How to Understand Different Switches, and Even Make Your Own
17. Jack, Batt, and Pack: Powering and Packaging Your Hacked Toy

Part IV: Building

18. The World's Simplest Circuit: Six Oscillators on a Chip, Guaranteed to Work
19. From Breadboard to Circuit Board: How to Solder Up Your First Circuit
20. Getting Messy: Oscillators That Modulate Each Other, Feedback Loops, Theremins, Tone Controls, Instability, Clocks for Toys, Crickets
21. On/Off (More Fun with Photoresistors): Gating, Ducking, Tremolo, and Panning
22. Amplification and Distortion: A Simple Circuit That Goes from Clean Preamp to Total Distortion, and an Envelope Follower
23. Analog to Digital Conversion, Sort Of: Modulating Other Audio Sources with Your Circuits, Pitch Tracking, and Sequencers

26. Mixers, Matrices and Processing: Very Simple, Very Cheap, Very Clean Mixers, and Ways of Configuring Lots of Circuits
27. A Little Power Amplifier: Cheap and Simple
28. Analog to Digital Conversion, Really: Connecting Sensors to Computers Using Game Controllers

Art & Music 11: The Luthiers

29. Power Supplies: Carbon Footprints from AA to EEE
30. The Future is Now

AppendicesA: ResourcesB: Tools and Materials NeededC: The Rules of HackingD: Notes for the DVDNotes and ReferencesIllustration CreditsIndex

Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture is a revised and expanded edition of this classic work, providing a thorough treatment of the relevant history behind the marriage of technology and music that has led to the state ...